From fixing cars to refinishing cabinets: Tom's Garage in Scranton sold
Jul. 21—SCRANTON — From fixing cars to refinishing cabinets.
Tom's Garage, an old-school auto repair shop for 50 years at 519 Wyoming Ave. before closing last year, has been sold.
Master mechanic Tom Voytek, who stopped working at the garage four years ago because of health problems, sold the property this month to a firm of Kevin Cunningham for $250,000.
The property includes:
—An original two-story building that's probably a century old at least, and that once had street-level storefronts and a residence above;
—A small, two-bay garage addition along Wyoming Ave.;
—A larger garage addition off the rear of the building accessible from Oakford Court, and where Voytek did most of his work.
Cunningham will use the first floor of the original building for a kitchen-cabinet refinishing franchise of the "N-Hance" brand wood-refinishing business model, and plans to open by Sept. 1.
While they only met recently, Voytek and Cunningham have fast become friends and banter like besties who go back decades.
"We became good buddies," Voytek said. "I let him come in before the sale closed" to get started on the transition.
Voytek still visits his old haunt daily to help Cunningham wade through, clean out and sell off 50 years of Voytek's auto-shop accumulation.
The first floor, musty basement and mustier sub-basement with stone foundations and steps leading to the main garage downstairs and out back were packed wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with remnants of the busy mechanic's lifetime of work. Those included hand tools, power tools, parts, tires, rims, engines, vintage compressor, oil tanks and an old Jaguar still parked in the main garage, to name a few items.
The building was a tire shop for some time before Voytek, a disabled Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, opened his shop there in 1971. He bought the property in 1979.
A throwback to a time when auto repair largely relied upon wrenches, grease and sweat, Voytek survived the automotive industry's evolution into electronics and online methods of troubleshooting, diagnosing and fixing vehicles.
Cars went from being fairly simple to much more complicated, requiring auto shops to have expensive equipment and smart technicians. Voytek evolved, too, and thrived with loyal clientele who stayed with him over the decades.
Cunningham noted a former employee of Voytek's from about 30 years ago recently saw the front garage door open and stopped to see if Tom was around to say hello, though he was not there.
Voytek stopped working in 2019 after being diagnosed with cancer related to exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
"One of the reasons I retired, I couldn't (physically) do it anymore," Voytek said. "I'd still have it if I could."
But he struggled to find qualified staffers to keep the business running and finally closed the shop in June 2022.
Voytek shows no hint of sadness at the changing of the guard at his former garage.
"I love it," Voytek said. "It never looked as good."
Cunningham, a Long Island, New York native, who recently became a downtown Scranton resident, owns 10 buildings in the Hill Section that he rents to college students. He will use the two-bay addition fronting on Wyoming Avenue for storage.
The second floor of the building used to be an apartment that was unoccupied for about 15 years. Cunningham eventually will renovate the second floor and might make it into two apartments. And he might rent out the main garage for use as — what else? — an auto repair shop.
"It's ideal for that," Cunningham said.
emailto:Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9100 x5185; @jlockwoodTT on Twitter.
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